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What PSA Score sent you to a Urologist?

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Aug 12 10:24am | Replies (61)

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@kevinsabin

Hadn't been to a dr in 20 yrs, yeah shame on me. 12/29/23 went and PSA is 12.4. That's not good...
High cholesterol, too. Went on super strict diet - no caffeine, no alcohol, no chocolate, no bread, no red meat, no fast food, no fried foods, no chips, etc. Reading ingredients looking for sugar and only buying very low sugar content items. Diet consisted of banana in morning, low sugar count yogurt, low sugar count granola, apple at night which represented 90-95% of my intake. Gleason 4+3 and diagnosis of intermediate grade, non-aggressive cancer confined to the prostate.
May 15th PSA is at 8.6. Radiologist and Urologist have no answer why.
Aug. 2nd PSMA-PET reveals numerous PSMA avid metastatic lymph nodes within the abdominopelvic cavity. Multiple perirectal and presacral lymph nodes with tiny bilateral pelvic sidewall lymph nodes. Intense left periaortic metastatic lymph nodes nodes.
I'm 68 next month and pretty good health otherwise - somewhat active, 10 lbs lighter than when I married at 35, still managing 3 retail stores on a near-daily basis.
Vacillating between surgery and radiation. Any advice one way or the other would be appreciated.

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Replies to "Hadn't been to a dr in 20 yrs, yeah shame on me. 12/29/23 went and PSA..."

Hi Kevin. Welcome to the forum. I’m sorry that you have to join the brotherhood that no man wants to be part of. I’m a stage 3 prostate cancer patient with local lymph node disease. I just turned 69 last week so we are pretty close in age.

I’m hoping that you are receiving care either at one of the Mayo facilities or at another center of excellence elsewhere in the country. Let me know if you need a list of them. Getting treatment recommendations from an integrated care team is far more valuable than my personal opinion and likely the opinion of anyone else on the forum.

Someone recommended the book “surviving prostate cancer” by Dr Pat Walsh 5th edition to me. I found it helpful and recommend that you consider buying a copy. I bought mine on Amazon and I think it was the best 10 or $20 that I’ve spent in understanding more about my disease and care options.

Hopefully your team will convene a tumor board and discuss what they believe is the best treatment modality for you. I’m speculating here but my guess is that it will involve at least some amount of radiation as well as first and second generation ADT. It may also involve surgery to debulk the tumor and reduce the size of the battle.

I’ve had surgery, radiation, and I am currently on first and second generation ADT for 24 months. It’s been a challenge for the last eight months to say the least but my PSA is currently undetectable and I do my best each day to enjoy life.

Hang in there and let us know if there’s anything else we can do to help you on your journey.